274 
CONSOLIDATED, VERSUS POROUS SOIL. 
They are as yet rare, though, as they have proved cultivable, we may hope to see them become 
more common in the course of a few years, the more especially as some of them produce seed 
■ freely. Our present subjects are natives of Asia Minor or of neighbouring countries ; and we 
believe were all introduced shortly before his death by Dr. Herbert. C. Cartwrightianus is 
found in the Greek islands Teno and Scyro. C. pulchellus comes from Belgrade, as well as the 
east side of the Bosphorus, and Mount Athos. C. Boryanus is found in Asia Minor, the Morea, 
and the Greek Islands. 
Culture. —These Crocuses grow freely in a rather dry deep loamy soil, and may be regarded 
as hardy in our climate, if' they are preserved from the injurious influences of over-wetness in 
the soil; though, as their vegetative development takes place during our most inclement 
weather, it may be proper to give them a sheltered situation, such as the foot of a wall or 
building. Until they become much more abundant, however, they can hardly have much influ¬ 
ence on out-door gardening; but they are invaluable as pot plants for the decoration of 
greenhouses and sitting rooms during the later autumnal months, when few flowers remain. In 
pot-culture they should have good sized well drained pots of sandy loam and leaf-mould, and 
should be grown in a cold frame, whence they may be removed while in blossom to the 
situations they are required to decorate, and after flowering should be returned to the frame and 
slightly protected during severe weather. They are increased by the offsets from the old conns; 
and also in some cases by seeds, which may furnish the means of increasing the variety of these 
autumnal ornaments.—M. 
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CONSOLIDATED, VERSUS POBOUS SOIL. 
T?N a notice of Mr. Bivers’s nursery, at Sawbridgeworth, by Mr. Downing of New York, recently 
A published in the Horticulturist, a transatlantic publication, we find the subjoined passage:—“A 
singular mode of growing Strawberries in pots, for forcing, is practised here with great success, and is 
the same as that pursued by one of the most celebrated English market gardeners. It consists in 
growing the plants in pots filled with good soil—say three-fourths loam and one-fourth rotten dung— 
pounded down in the pot quite hard with a mallet. [The pots are placed alongside the beds, and the 
runners fixed on the soil in them : when rooted they are treated in the usual way]. The increased 
size, vigour, and productiveness of the plants and fruit grown in these closely crammed pots, are, we 
are assured, undeniable. This method is opposed to all ordinary theory and practice, which depend 
upon making and keeping the soil loose and mellow.” 
In a subsequent page of the same work is an article commenting on the above statement, by Mr. 
Meehan, an English gardener, formerly employed at Kew, now of Philadelphia, of which we give the 
substance, as follows, as a text for the comments of some of our correspondents :— 
“ ‘Facts, in themselves seemingly trifling, are often of the greatest importance to the physiologist 
and natural philosopher/ I have found that this is true, and so, doubtless, have many of your readers. 
The firmly pressed soil in the Strawberry pots, may lead to results as great, in the practice of horticul¬ 
ture, as the falling of an apple to the science of astronomy. 
“ My first observations on this subject are connected with the unfortunate potato. It was not long 
after my good father had permanently taken me with him, to teach me the beautiful intricacies of the 
various branches of his profession, that we were walking together through the farm, where the men 
were digging potatoes; in the field were growing various kitchen crops almost in daily requisition, 
and this, with other reasons for crossing it, combined to make the headland quite a road-way,—so 
much so, that perhaps, for a width of four or six feet, the potatoes were trodden under foot, and the 
ground about them rendered very hard. I pointed out to my father that the potatoes dug from this part 
were fully one-third larger than the others, and inquired the reason. He gave, as his opinion, that 
the action of the plough drawing the manure towards the headland, and rendering the soil deeper 
there, the production of superior potatoes was the consequence. This partly satisfied me ; but I never 
could entirely disconnect the idea of the big lumps of hard solid earth from the large potatoes. 
“ The year following, another circumstance recalled this observation. In drilling onion seed some 
was spilled on the alleys between the beds, where the ground was, of course, much trodden; but the 
accidentally spilled seed produced onions twelve or fourteen inches in circumference, which, hi that 
latitude (Isle of Might), was above the average. Some time after that, I observed a similar circum- 
